If you are like many parents, the teenage years hit your home like a tornado. In your child’s opinion, you went from being a Zen Master of all things related to life and morphed into their own real world version of Homer Simpson. This child who once was the source of such joy and affirmation in your life now causes you to perp...

The average American family will spend $765 on immediate family this year for Christmas. If you are like most parents with teenagers, you might as well tack on a couple hundred dollars extra. As they get older, the gifts get more expensive because they are inevitably tech related. Whether your kids are 6 or 16, here are a few t...

Growing up under the watchful eye of his mom and dad, Eric loved going to church. Like most kids, he loved the songs, his teachers, and seeing his childhood friends each week. But even for a kid, church wasn’t just a social thing for Eric. He could clearly remember the summer of third grade during one evening at Vacation Bible...

My kids call me “the king of deals.” It no longer surprises them when I come home with something that I got for next to nothing. Most recently it was the $1500 living room suite that I got for $300. Its not always something as big as this. Many times its as simple as six boxes of pasta I got for free or .99 dry clean...

I didn’t mean for it to happen. As much as I wanted to come up with some justifiable reason for my loss of temper, there wasn’t one. I overreacted. And my 12-year-old daughter got the brunt of my anger. Before I knew it, words were coming out of my mouth that were beyond what was called for in the situation. Instead of const...

“I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life.” – Psalm 119.93 We have all had those days when you feel like nothing is happening; nothing is changing. You are at a standstill. There is simply no spark. In the middle of this dessert your teen walks in with a crisis that needs fixing or a pr...

If your family is like mine, you love basking in the pleasure of summer break. There are no tests, science fair projects, homework, or anything else that resembles school. This also means your child is at home all day long, everyday, with lots of idle time on his hands. We all know what the idle mind of a twelve year old can bec...

Our culture loves creating scapegoats. When the economy goes bad, we point fingers at the President. When kids don’t make high enough grades, we blame teachers. When a marriage crumbles, it’s always the other person’s fault. When we feel afraid, hurt, or disappointed, a scapegoat is never far out of reach. We do the same t...

Learning to love one’s neighbor requires a willingness to live as part of the community. If you read part one of this Halloween post, then you know this was never easy for me when it came to Halloween. For me to embrace the idea of celebrating Halloween with my neighborhood meant that there would have to be an act of love ...

Growing up a kid in a Christian home in the 1970s, the one day each year I was trained to fear was Halloween. It was the Devil’s day after all–the one day out of the year that evil was at its peak, mayhem was rampant, and somehow Satan’s “power” was able to supersede over that which was good. As a m...